Sequel to The Ambassador by Tom Fletcher, out March 28th from Canelo
Tom Fletcher had a great success with his debut novel The Ambassador which told the tale of Ed Barnes, ambassador in Paris, France who survives an assassination attempt at his diplomatic household. The sequel shows Ed taking up a new position in Nairobi, Kenya.
The book starts breakneck and deals with two duelling narratives that eventually co-exist. Barnes must deal with a hostage situation at a major shopping mall in the city centre, where a Somali terrorist group take over and unfortunately his daughter, Stephanie, is amongst the captive group.
Having foiled those terrorists, Barnes returns to London to talk with the female Prime Minister Hermoine, who will attend a climate conference all amidst the wave of political assassinations taking place around the globe by the pseudonymous assassin who may or may not know Barnes.
The kills of the assassin are perhaps the best parts of the book - a real joy for the writer to throw caution to the wind eliciting different deaths for not very nice people in grand surroundings.
It is the general narrative with the balance of family dynamics and climate change political wrangling that forces the book to sometimes slow down when the pace of terrorist attacks and surprise kills is where the excitement is.
Typical of books this reader has read lately, where the foundation and building blocks of the book in the first half are critical to the cut and thrust of the second half when tension is ramped up and pays off.
Credit to Fletcher who as a former foreign policy advisor has the legitimacy of knowledge to convey and commit to the story and in Barnes he has a genuine hero who wants to do the right thing despite the political climate around him.
The Assassin is out on 28th March from Canelo
My thanks to them for the review copy via NetGalley.
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